Bulgari presented its new high jewellery collection “Eden Garden of Wonders” during a spectacular two-day event in Paris, hosted by Bulgari Group CEO, Jean-Christophe Babin and the Italian Ambassador to France, Teresa Castaldo. Held at the Italian Embassy in the city the exclusive gathering showcased the creativity and unrivalled craftsmanship of the jeweller to an exclusive group of esteemed guests including brand ambassadors Anne Hathaway, Lalisa and Priyanka Chopra Jonas.
This year, the collection is titled “Eden the Garden of Wonders” with more than 140 unique jewellery masterpieces designed by Creative Director Lucia Silvestri celebrating the marvellous colours of nature, interpreted through boundless creativity and the rainbow of colour that the brand is associated with. For the first time, the collection includes more than 20 pieces dedicated to the emerald stone, with show-stopping pieces highlighting the beauty of this delightful green gemstone. The “Emerald Glory” is the showpiece of the collection, designed to be worn in multiple ways.
As part of the launch, Bulgari also revealed ‘Beyond Wonder’ an innovative collection of NFT artworks of two high jewellery creations; the Magnifica Ruby Metamorphosis and the Emerald Glory necklaces. These are the first NFT jewels ever realised by Bulgari and further strengthen the connection between High Jewellery and cutting-edge technology. The two digital artworks will be sold only together with their physical twin necklace.
Here we discover more about the collection and its inspiration with Bulgari Jewellery Creative Director Lucia Silvestri.
Congratulations on this beautiful collection, why did you choose the name/theme to be “Eden Garden of Wonders”?
I chose the name because after the tough period of the pandemic and lockdown, we wanted to be in touch with nature and the colours, and all the energy that they bring. I very much believe in the energy of gemstones, and I see flowers in a similar way and I love to combine the two.
There is a beautiful park in Rome called Villa Borghese which for me is an example of “Eden”. I live very close to this park and during the lockdown, I would walk there often and feel the combination of nature and architecture with the columns, the gallery, the flowers the leaves, the birds, and the fountains – it was a beautiful escape. With these inspiring frames mind, I met with our internal teams to look through our archives and found that we have had a lot of jewels throughout the years with themes centred around nature – flowers, butterflies, leaves – it is in our DNA. So, we said why don’t we try to create a collection inspired by Eden, in a contemporary way by using new colours, and designs?
The colour combinations were the first thing that caught my eye, tell me about that…
Firstly, I want to share a lesson I have learnt. It is something that Mr Gianni Bulgari suggested to me many years ago. He told me; “don’t be shy with colour,”. And this has always encouraged me to play with colours and to be daring and it is something that I try to keep in mind every year and every time I design a new collection. This time, because the concept of Eden is something that is associated with colour, we used more colours and new combinations. When I travelled looking for stones for this collection, I found new colours that I wanted to incorporate. I discovered new sapphires for example that I used with emeralds and two kinds of pink that were paired together for the first time. I think at Bulgari we have created trends in the jewellery market and our colours and colour combinations are something that has inspired others.
Anne Hathaway wore the beautiful “Mediterranean Reverie” necklace in Cannes, tell us about that?
Yes, she did and it’s such an amazing gem. The velvet blue tone is incredible. You could spend hours looking at this gem. I love it. We wanted to create a necklace that was very elegant and timeless to announce the beauty of Anne Hathaway as the new face of the brand and it worked perfectly. And then of course she wore it on the red carpet in Cannes and looked perfect. The balance and harmony with her Giorgio Armani dress was exquisite.
Can you tell us more about this collection and what it means to you?
We have 140 pieces in total, and I’m very excited because this is the first time that I’ve seen the full collection displayed all together. I followed it piece by piece, through the production process, but to see it come together like this is truly special. I’m very proud and touched. As part of the collection, we have around 30 pieces that are a tribute to emeralds. We had the opportunity over the past few years to collect some beautiful emeralds and we decided to celebrate this with a special dedication.
Let’s talk about a piece from this collection that took the most time and why?
That would be the “Emerald Glory”. First because to find these emeralds – eleven gems – was really difficult. It is a versatile piece that can be worn as a choker, a necklace, or a tiara. So the challenge for the artisans was to create something that is not heavy and was quite easy to change into the different ways of wearing it. My idea was to create a necklace that had this beautiful layout. I found the first three emeralds in New York, but I didn’t want to use these three stones alone, I wanted to wait for others to pair with them. Next, I found two stones in Hong Kong and one in Dubai, and then I started to work on the layout, and I found the four final stones. Once I had 11 stones I said ‘OK, we have enough gems to create a necklace’. We re-cut the emeralds into the perfect shape in Rome, and we created a graduated layout with the Columbian emeralds. It took 3,000 hours to create this piece and before that, we spent three years finding the stones!
What have you found has changed in what women are looking from jewellery since the pandemic?
I think women are looking for quality more than quantity. For myself, it’s the same. I prefer quality in terms of time, fashion, jewellery, quality of craftsmanship, gems, and creativity – I think that women are looking for quality in all these things.
How would you access the industry today overall?
For us at Bulgari it is different because we take our time, and we don’t want to compromise. We launch a high jewellery collection every year, we look for quality in the gems that we select, and we are a brand that has an important name which we can’t compromise on, so we take time to create something very special. We see many brands rushing to create but we are different, we want to have time to create with quality.
What else is in the pipeline for this year from Bulgari jewellery?
We are working with our key pillars. Serpenti of course – we have the new Viper which I love, it’s an everyday gem and we are working on more designs for this iconic collection. Then we have B01 and BVLGARI, BVLGARI – we are working with all these collections and developing them further. That’s all I can tell you for now!
What is a challenge that you face now and how is the industry changing around you?
There are many challenges every year but sourcing the gems is the biggest challenge for us because they are becoming so rare and difficult to find. The most beautiful gems are rarer than ever, and the demand is very high. We have a lot of competitors, but we are a name that is very important for those working in the field and we are lucky that everyone calls Bulgari as their first point of call. So that does help. When a particularly important stone is discovered, we are the first to be told. But there is still a big challenge surrounding this.
Also, creativity is a challenge, and we have a lot of competitors. But I think that we have the best team of designers, it’s an all-female team and I’m very proud to work in a company that believes in women, something that is still very rare. I am very lucky to be in a company that gives the opportunities to me and my team to express our creativity.
What are the words that you would use to describe this collection?
Harmony, joyful, elegant, and timeless.
And finally, what stones are you playing with at your desk currently?
There is an emerald that’s close to 300 carats – that could be the talking piece for the next collection, but you will have to wait and see!
